he cut his way through the troops who furrounded
him, and made to the banks of the Irtifh *. Being
clofely purfued by a detachment of the enemy, he endeavoured
to throw himfelf into a boat which lay near
the f hor ebut ftepping fhort, he fell into the water,
and being incumbered with the weight o f his armour,
funk inftantly to the bottom t.
His body was not long afterwards taken out of the
Irtifh, and expofed, by order of Kutchum Chan, to all
the infults which revenge ever fuggefted to barbarians
in the frenzy of fuccefs. But thefe firft tranfports of
refentment had no fooner fubfided, than the Tartars
teftified the moft pointed indignation at- -the ungenerous
* Many -difficulties have arifen concerning the branch o f the Irtifh in
- which Yermac was drowned-; but it is now fufficiently afcertained that
it was a' canal, which fome time before this cataftrophe had been cut by
■ order of that Coffac.: Not far from the fpot, where the Yagai falls into
the Irtifh, the latter river forms a bend of fix verfts ; by cutting a -canal
in a ftreight line from the two extreme points o f this.fweep, he Ihsrtened
■ the length-of the navigation. S .R. G. p. 365— 366.
-j~ Cyprian was appointed the firft archbifhop o f Siberia, in 1621. Upon
his arrival at Tobolfk, he enquired for feVeral o f the antient followers
■ of Yermac who were ftill ’ alive; and from them he made himfelf acquainted
with the principal circumftances attending the expedition o f
•that Coffac, and the conqueftof Siberia."' Thofe circumftances he trarff-
mitted to writing; and thefe papers are the archives o f the Siberian
hiftory; from which the feveral hiftorians of that Country have drawn
their relations. Sava Yefimoff, who was himfelf one o f Yermac’s followers
is one o f the moft accurate hiftorians of thofe times. He carries
dowrrhis hiftory to the year 1636. Fif. Sib. Gef. 1. p. 430.
ferocity
ferocity of their leader. The prowefs of Yermac, his
confummate valour ,and magnanimity, virtues which
barbarians know how to prize, rofe upon their recollection.
They made a fudden tranfition from one extreme
to the other : they reproached their leader for
ordering, themfelves for beipg the unftruments of indignity
to fuch venerahle remains. At -Length their heated
imaginations proceeded even to confecrate his memory:
they interred his body with all the rites of Pagan fu-
perftition,; and offered up facrifices to his manes.
Many miraculous ftories were foon fpread abroad, and §§fM4l J
A ' paid to his
■ met' with implicit belief. The touch of his body was Mcmory'
fuppofed -to have been an inftantaneous cure for all disorders
; and even his clothes and arms were faid to be
endowed with the fame efficacy. A flame of fire was
•reprefented as fometimes hovering about his tomb, and
ffometimes as flretching in one luminous body from the
Tame fpot towards the heavens. A prefiding influence
over the affairs of the chace and of war was attributed
to his departed fpirit ; and numbers reforted to his tomb
to invoke his tutelary aid in concerns io interefting to
■ uncivilized nations.- Thefe idle fables, though they
»evince the fnperftitious credulity of the Tartars, convey
at the fame time the ftrongeft teflimony of their veneration
for the memory of Yermac 5 and this veneration
C c greatly